Time passed. The knight unable to regain his resolve looked down at the gaping holes in his body as he laid against the tree. “Why do I yet live?” he wondered. With a desperate rasp, he looked to the sky, seeing stars peeking through the canopy above. “Gods above, why?” The knight felt a sorrow unlike any he had felt before. “The people cry out for your aid, and yet you ignore them?” He waited for what felt like eternity. “I too ask for aid, yet these long years, I have heard nothing… Please, send me a sign. Any sign that this world is not lost to you.”
An entire day he waited by the tree, looking up at the sky. As the suns light faded behind the horizon, his hope and faith also grew dim. And as the last light vanished, he looked back down at the blades he had pulled from his body. “Then we are truly alone…” Slowly he drew the broadsword, placing the point against the bottom of his chin. A few breaths later, the nameless knight closed his eyes. His lip trembling, but the tears would not flow. He drew his final breath, and then he felt the blade ripped from his hands.
Before the knight could open his eyes, an old man flung himself onto him with an embrace. “Good sir, stop.” The knight, uncertain what to do remained still. The old man weeped softly and gripped him tightly. “I hear you. And I beg you, stay your blade.” A few minutes went by, and eventually the old mans grip weakened. “Who are you, elder?” the nameless knight asked.“I am called Manoth,” he said as he wiped his tears away. “A fool of an old man who found you at your lowest.”
The two spoke through out the night. Manoth answered many questions about himself. He was from a city north of the capital called Clayshire. It is a small community of hard working folk. They make their living selling clay from the lake nearby. The knight listened to everything Manoth had to say, but eventually he asked him the hardest question.
“Why did you stop me?”
Comments (1)